Aadhaar Linking With Phone Numbers/Bank Accounts Not Mandatory

Supreme court has extended the timeline to update Aadhaar details indefinitely. The new order from SC says that “The government cannot insist for mandatory Aadhaar even for the issuance of Tatkal passport.”

Ignore any messages from your telecom operators to link Aadhaar with your mobile number. Similarly, also ignore messages and calls from e-wallet services and banks, regarding the linking of Aadhar.

The interim order from SC also says that Aadhaar is still mandatory to receive govt subsidies. However, this will depend on the five-judge bench which will consider the different petitions, that challenges the constitutional validity of Aadhar.

What is Aadhaar?

Aadhar, the unique identification number allotted and maintained by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Similarly, it is the largest database of private information including fingerprints, and iris scans of billions of Indians. The database also includes pictures, addresses and private information of all the individuals registered on the database.

Security frailty of Aadhaar

130 Million records of the Aadhaar number were reportedly breached in Q1 of 2017, while UIDAI had claimed that they had rectified the breach. The data of this leak was already out on the Internet, available as access records for the millions of accounts.

A journalist claims to have bought access to a User Name and Password that allowed him unrestricted access to details of the more than 1 billion Aadhaar numbers. This was provided in less than 10 minutes over a WhatsApp chat, after a PayTM transfer of a mere Rs. 500.